Shepard sat in the screening room, hating the man behind the desk almost as much as she hated any live batarian that presented itself before her eyes. He was an egghead, which, coming from a self-proclaimed geek-nerd, was a real slam. Geek-nerds could function in society, or in the face of harsh realities in real life. Eggheads needed carefully monitored environments, predictable stimuli. They couldn't think outside their beloved white, featureless box.

It was why they usually wound up asking people how they felt.

Which was why so many people hated them.

Right now, he was paying more attention the datapad than to her.

"What do you mean?" Her voice came out level, but on the inside she felt like doing nothing so much as hissing and spitting. Making a scene, because she heard perfectly well what he said.

I don't think you're suitable.

Well, here was to people who could think, but Shepard had no intention of letting them turn her application for initial evaluation away. Not someone who couldn't shoot to save his life. Not someone who'd probably never served on an Alliance frigate out in the Traverse, or on the Verge, shooting at or being shot at by who knew what kind of troublemakers several times a week.

So what if she had not distinguished herself in basic? She had meant to keep a low profile, until she turned the magic age of eighteen. But now, it was different. She was legal, whatever else she was. She did not need to worry about keeping herself off the radar, lest someone spot some inconsistency that might betray her – never mind the lack of documentation. She had no reason to worry about personal safety, all the people who cared were either dead, or out of her life completely.

Which, she thought grimly, was why she would succeed where others might fail. She had nothing to lose except her life. She did not want to die, but if she did at least have the consolation the people who had gone on before her would be waiting.

One or two would be waiting to smack her upside the head for begin careless.

"I said, and I shall translate it into smaller sords," the interviewer declared patronizingly, "give up."

"No." What would he say to that?

"Private Shepard…"

"Space that! If you've got a real reason to keep me out, then spit it out. Right now, it's just your opinion. Your opinion is noted. Let's get down to the varren killing." A colonial phrase, but perhaps it would have the right effect.

"Fine. If you're so eager to taste disappointment…"

"I don't give up." Shepard pinned him with a vivid-eyed glare.

He did not pay any attention to this interruption, or the nearly homicidal look Shepard gave him.

Typical egghead.

"…then who am I to try and protect you from it? But I must say, I've had far better than you turn up for consideration, and many of them take the very good advice I've just offered you."

"Giving up never made an N7 out of anyone." Anger pounded in her ears, the sort of righteous indignation that had gotten her through quite a bit in life. "Giving up makes me an army puke who missed her true calling." Missed her calling, and enlisted with the marines. Shepard refused to accept this as a possibility. She was a marine, and proud of it.

Before O'Conner's finding a sweetheart, and before her death, they had kicked around the idea of getting screened for the N program. The memory stiffened her resolve that 'give up' was behavior unbecoming, not to be considered.

The interviewer sighed, waving Shepard along, after handing her a datapad. "I did warn you, Shepard: give up. There's no shame in it."

Shepard took the datapad, lips pursed, and shut the door firmly behind her. She could not congratulate herself for restraint in not explaining a few facts about marines in general to the egghead. He might understand words with six syllables, but the facts she wanted to explain were probably out of his reach.

She felt a stab of pity for those condemned to exist as eggheads, a stab of pity quickly eaten up by the smoldering embers of irritation, amassed over the course of the afternoon.

Give up indeed. It never occurred to Shepard, in the mires of indignation, that the first test for a potential candidate had just occurred. It did not occur to her either, that she had passed.

…

'Give up' seemed to be the mantra for the instructors weeding out the perspective N-operatives. She heard it each day, every day, seven days a week. Heard it until she could hear it in her sleep.

Every time the two hated words came up, her teeth clenched, eyes narrowed, and she found herself doing whatever it took to fling defiance in the face of whoever said it. She knew what they were doing, weeding out those without the aptitude, without the drive, without the self-sufficiency to ignore superiors telling them day in, day out, just give up. Give up. Go home.

An operator should be used to hearing the words. The words were just those: words. Words with no more meaning than 'peat', bullshit, or spork. The words 'give up' should not even be in the successful N's vocabulary.

So Shepard knuckled down, doing much the same thing she had done in high school, albeit on a more mature level. Proving other people wrong. She might not be right, but if she could not be right, neither should they.

Of course, staying angry took too much energy, and many nights in the month-long screening left her thinking that perhaps they had a point. After day fifteen, it was easier to dismiss this. She had already gotten halfway through, it would be such a waste to just give up now.

Not to mention it would prove those sadistic instructors right.

And she did not want them to be right.